History of REGUA
REGUA’s project manager, Nicholas Locke, lives with his wife Raquel and their two children Thomas and Micaela at the head of the Guapiaçu valley. As well as managing all the many varied aspects of the project Nicholas manages his own farm, much of which is rented to share-croppers. Nicholas’s father, Robert Locke now spends most of his time in England at his home in Kew and is a trustee of the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest Trust, but is a frequent visitor to REGUA where he still retains a house.
Both Nicholas and Robert have been instrumental in developing the REGUA project, but the Locke family’s interest in the area can be traced back to 1915 when Robert’s grandfather, Hilmar Werner, acquired the Fazenda do Carmo in payment for a debt. At that time the farm was rather unproductive and surrounded by low-lying wetlands which harboured malaria and typhoid. Access to the farm was difficult, and was reached by the narrow gauge railway which linked Rio de Janeiro to Novo Friburgo, stopping at the nearest station of Santana de Japuiba, some 21 kilometres away from the farm, or by flat-bottomed boat along the river Guapiaçu. The trek from Japuiba to the farm by horse-drawn carriage was particularly difficult during the rainy season, but after 1945 the family used a black and red Dodge lorry which would often get stuck in deep mud on the primitive track cut through forest which has now become the main access road.
Hilmar was a wealthy man from his silk factory in Petropolis and immediately set about improving the farm with great enthusiasm and refurbished the original Carmelite colonial house, which is now sadly an overgrown and derelict shell following a recent fire. As well as purchasing more low-lying neighbouring land to add to the farm, he built an electrical turbine and sawmill (with equipment imported from Germany), new outbuildings, bridges and even a distillery for making cachaca (a local brandy made from sugar cane). Coffee for export was grown on the hills with sugar cane on the lowlands together with cassava and the staple black beans. A flock of sheep was introduced, and many fine trees from the forest were felled and floated down the river to Rio for their timber, while the existing avenue of trees along the roadside in front of the Schincariol dam was planted. The farm had its own chapel and cemetery which still exist today, and a large provisions store for everyone on the farm. The farm prospered and grew to 6,500 hectares but by 1937, due to the collapse of international prices, the coffee plantations were abandoned and the planting of bananas on the hills began. Meanwhile the lower hills were systematically deforested with the wood being used for firewood. During this period hunting was a generally widespread activity and gradually resulted in the extermination of a number of the larger game species.
When Hilmar died in 1953, the farm was inherited by his three Brazilian-born daughters who employed various administrators to run the farm with variable results. Around that time a large area of land called Sebastiana was expropriated by the then federal government and divided up to provide smallholdings for workers and their families, but the main farm was making profits again which were used to build up herds of cattle for beef production. Upon the death in 1978 of the eldest of the three sisters (Robert’s aunt and godmother), it was agreed to divide the entire farm into three parts. The largest area of high forested mountains with little farming value was given to Robert Locke and a new bridge was built across the Rio dos Gatos to provide access to his land. The central 2,000 hectares with the family house was given to one to Robert’s cousins Ulrich Resiky, and the smallest but most fertile area was given to Robert’s brother John Locke. John developed his area by draining the wetlands to create pasture for cattle and built the infrastructure at Sao Jose, including the current lodge which was to be his main residence, whereas Ulrich made few changes and presided over the gradual decay of the buildings and land. John also managed Robert’s land for him, which became the Fazenda Serra do Mar, by renting out the existing pasture and harvesting bananas but he respected Robert’s views on preserving the forest and allowing reforestation to occur naturally on the previously cleared lower hills and along the river banks.
In 1982, Robert’s son Nicholas, after studying agriculture at Merrist Wood college near Guildford in England, went to live on the farm as an apprentice to John and also to manage his father’s land under his guidance. Not long afterwards Nicholas met and married Raquel and together they built their first house on the site where they now live. Sadly in 1987, John died leaving Nicholas and Raquel with the task of looking after both farms, which, under very difficult circumstances, they did admirably. A few years later Robert’s cousin Ulrich sold most of his land to the beer company, Schincariol, who were attracted to the plentiful supply of pure water. They built a dam and reservoir in order to pipe water to a new state-of-the-art brewery 15 kilometres away. To a great extent the original heart of the Fazenda do Carmo was obliterated under the waters of this dam.
The seed of REGUA was planted in 1994 following a visit by Stephen Knapp (another Merrist Wood graduate and contemporary of Nicholas’s brother Adrian) and Andy Foster. Stephen became incredibly enthusiastic about the natural beauty and richness of wildlife, particularly the variety of birds which he saw. The discovery of a significant number of rare and endangered species in one of the most threatened habitats in the world convinced Stephen of the imperative to conserve it. With encouragement from Robert and Nicholas, Stephen started to develop the idea of establishing the site as an ecological reserve and looked for financial backing in the UK as attempts to develop links with conservation NGOs already operating in south-east Brazil were unsuccessful. In early 1996 Stephen made contact with Toby Bromley who as well as introducing him to John Burton of the World Land Trust and to Professor Sir Ghillean Prance, provided the funding for Stephen to carry out further fieldwork and to develop a project plan. At an early stage it was agreed that the objectives of the project had to include Research, Education and Community involvement as well as Conservation. In 1997 the first Project Plan was completed (the Serra do Mar Reserva Ecologica Master Plan) which included ambitious plans to raise funds to purchase land from Robert Locke, Mrs Nora Locke (John’s wife) and several other parcels of land to the north and west. The plan was also to enter into partnership agreements with other adjoining landowners, especially Schincariol, to establish a contiguous area that could be protected and managed for wildlife.
In 1998 the project’s new name of the Reserva Ecologica de Guapiaçu (REGUA) was adopted and in 2001 the REGUA Association was formed in accordance with Brazilian law with full administrative responsibilities. Meanwhile in England in 1999 the Brazilian Atlantic Rainforest Trust (BART) was established as a registered charity with Professor Sir Ghillean Prance, Toby Bromley and Robin Hanbury-Tenison as trustees with the objective of providing financial support to REGUA. The board of trustees for BART was strengthened in 2001 when Stephen Rumsey and Tasso Leventis joined, followed by Robert Locke in 2002, Dr John Feltwell and Lindsay Bury in 2004 and Dr Jerry Bertrand in 2005. Toby Bromley died in August 2003, but his vision and support had been critical to the project’s growth and success in the early years.
With the significant financial support of the BART trustees, REGUA made its first land purchases in 2001 of the Donna Maria Farm (600 hectares) and the Serra do Mar Farm (1,650 hectares) from Robert Locke. These were followed in 2003 by the purchase of the Sao Jose Farm (405 hectares), and so within 10 years of the initial visit by Stephen Knapp two thirds of the original Fazenda do Carmo had been reunited under REGUA with the third piece owned and protected by Schincariol. In recent years the boundaries of REGUA have been expanded well beyond the original Fazenda with the purchase of the Joao Paulo land in 2006 and a series of smaller plots above Matumbo in 2007-08.
As well as continuing to expand the area protected through land purchase and partnerships with other landowners, REGUA is now working to restore some of the lost and damaged habitat through reforestation and wetland creation. It seems highly appropriate that a member of the Locke family is now responsible for protecting and restoring the land that despite the various agricultural cycles and forest clearance has survived with so much of its biodiversity intact.